Please Stop Writing ‘Why I Left New York’ Pandemic Essays

This time, Daum is not interested in puncturing her self-mythology or confronting her fecklessness. The decision to leave New York seems to happen to her. “I had, somewhat unexpectedly, acquired a 10-week-old Newfoundland,” she explains, in a sentence so purposefully opaque it ought to be in passive voice. How did she acquire the puppy? Unexpectedly in what sense? This is brushed over; the dog is here, and through no avowed fault of her own, she finds herself burdened with the guilt of confining a large, energetic puppy in a small city apartment. This guilt is her ticket out. The decision to take him away, she writes, “didn’t feel great, but it didn’t feel wrong.” She chooses Appalachia, “in the middle of nowhere yet within an hour of a hospital that wasn’t yet pegged to be overrun.” Not pegged to be overrun, presumably, until New Yorkers looking for a rural retreat sprinkle their viral load throughout the community.

Article source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stop-writing-why-i-left-new-york-pandemic-essays_n_5e9fa07bc5b6b2e5b839dcd3